The children of at least six seasoned Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders and a deceased Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) leader have found a place in the Assembly poll candidate list chief minister Mamata Banerjee released on Tuesday.
“The new faces represent a new generation. I always told you that our party was preparing its second and third generation leaders,” Banerjee said while releasing the list at her Kalighat residence in Kolkata.
The list held some surprises. Kalyan Banerjee’s son, Sirsanya, a lawyer like his father, will contest from Uttarpara in Hooghly district, where Banerjee Sr has won the Sreerampur Lok Sabha seat a record four times since 2009.
“He can work hard. I am sure my son will reach out to voters and win their support,” the MP said.
“I was into student politics during my college days, but this is a new journey,” said Sirsanya Banerjee, who has represented the state at the Calcutta High Court in the RG Kar Hospital rape and murder case and the teacher recruitment case.
At Kolkata’s Entally seat, TMC’s three-time winner Swarna Kamal Saha has been dropped and replaced by his son Sandipan.
“I have been active in politics for years but never contested an Assembly seat,” Sandipan Saha, a member of the Mayor-in-Council at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, said.
Similarly, in Panihati in North 24 Parganas district, sitting MLA Nirmal Ghosh has been replaced by his son Tirthankar.
TMC veteran Sadhan Pandey won Kolkata’s Manicktala seat thrice since 2011. After his death, his wife Supti Pandey won the seat in a 2024 by-election. The TMC has fielded their daughter Shreya.
“With Mamata Banerjee’s blessings, I am sure the people of Maniktala will ensure TMC’s victory,” Shreya Pandey said.
In the Bongaon South seat of North 24 Parganas district, which the Bharatiya Janata Party won in 2021, the TMC has fielded Rituparna Addhya. She is the daughter of Shankar Addhya, a former chairman of the Bangaon municipality and a suspect in the public distribution system (PDS) corruption case that federal agencies are probing.
For the Maheshtala seat in South 24 Parganas district, the TMC has selected Subhasis Das, the son of two-time MLA Dulal Chandra Das, whose daughter Ratna Chatterjee is contesting the district’s Behala West seat in place of sitting MLA and former education minister Partha Chatterjee. She earlier represented the Behala East seat, which her estranged husband and former Kolkata mayor Sovon Chatterjee won twice.
This, however, is not the only example of two candidates from the same family being fielded.
In West Burdwan district, minister Moloy Ghatak will contest from his old Asansol North seat for the fourth time, while his brother Abhijit Ghatak will contest the adjacent Kulti seat, which the BJP wrested in 2021.
After RSP leader Kshiti Goswami, a cabinet minister during the Left Front era, died in 2019, his daughter Vasundhara, a Left student leader, joined the TMC. She has been fielded from East Burdwan district’s Purbasthali North seat in place of sitting MLA Tapan Chatterjee, who wrested the seat from the CPI(M) in 2021.
“I am grateful that Mamata Banerjee has shown confidence in me. I will work hard to win this seat,” Vasundhara Goswami said.
The opposition BJP, which has repeatedly accused the TMC, Congress and other parties of nurturing dynastic politics, has announced only 144 candidates so far. The remaining 150 names are expected to be announced soon.
Having severed its alliance with the Left to contest all 294 Bengal seats, the Congress will release its list soon. Left with no MLAs and only one Lok Sabha member in Bengal, the party hopes to regain lost ground.
Congress leaders said Mausam Benazir Noor, the niece of A.B.A. Gani Khan Chowdhury, the Congress stalwart who served as Union railway and coal minister in the cabinets of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, may be fielded from Malda district’s Sujapur seat. Noor, a former Congress Lok Sabha member, recently quit the TMC, where she was a Rajya Sabha member, and returned to the grand old party.
“The BJP is in no position to make allegations. Kailash Vijayvargiya’s son is a legislator in Madhya Pradesh. So are the sons of Union defence minister Rajnath Singh. In Bengal, Suvendu Adhikari was a TMC MLA and minister while his father and elder brother were Lok Sabha members. His younger brother headed a municipality. They are all in the BJP now,” a TMC leader said, requesting anonymity.
